Category: Євросоюз

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine has exported 15 million metric tons of cargo through its Black Sea shipping corridor, including 10 million tons of agricultural goods, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said Tuesday. Ukraine launched the corridor hugging the western Black Sea coast near Romania and Bulgaria in August shortly after Russia withdrew from a 2022 U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain export deal and threatened to treat all vessels as potential military targets. “Over the five months of the corridor’s operation, 469 new vessels have called at our Ukrainian ports for loading,” Kubrakov said in a statement. He said that currently, 39 ships …

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KYIV, UKRAINE — Ukraine’s new draft legislation on military mobilization will not conscript women or introduce a lottery, a lawmaker said late Monday, a day before the parliament’s security committee was due to vote on what to do with the bill. “I can definitely say that there will be no lottery for conscription, no mobilization of women,” Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Yehor Chernev told Ukraine’s public broadcaster. “There will be no unconstitutional positions.” Tens of thousands of men volunteered to fight for Ukraine in the first months after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February …

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OTTAWA — Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine on Monday formally complained to the U.N. aviation council in their bid to hold Iran accountable for the downing of a Ukrainian passenger airliner in January 2020 that killed 176 people, they said on Monday. Most of the dead were citizens from the four nations, which created a coordination group that seeks to hold Iran to account. “Today we have jointly initiated dispute-settlement proceedings before the International Civil Aviation Organization against the Islamic Republic of Iran for using weapons against a civil aircraft in flight,” they said in a statement. Last June the four …

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BEIJING — China says it has detained an individual accused of collecting state secrets on behalf of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6. The Ministry of State Security posted on social media Monday that Britain had been cooperating since 2015 with the person, who it said was a citizen of a third nation and had the surname Huang. The ministry said Huang had received training in intelligence gathering, was provided with equipment and had collected numerous state secrets on repeated visits to China. No further information on the intelligence gathered was given, nor did the ministry say when he or she had …

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LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Slovenia’s rescuers successfully extracted five people Monday who have been trapped in a cave for more than two days because of high water levels, local media reported. The rescue operation was possible Monday after water levels inside the cave receded, Walter Zakrajsek, the head of the Cave Rescue Service, told the STA news agency. The operation was completed around midafternoon following an hours-long rescue operation by a six-member team of divers. A family of three adults and their two guides got stuck in the Krizna Jama cave in southwestern Slovenia on Saturday because of heavy rainfall. The eight-kilometer …

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BELLINZONA, Switzerland — A former interior minister of Gambia was going on trial Monday in Switzerland on charges including crimes against humanity for his alleged role in years of repression by the west African country’s security forces against opponents of its longtime dictator. Advocacy groups hailed the trial of Ousman Sonko, Gambia’s interior minister from 2006 to 2016 under then-President Yahya Jammeh, as an opportunity to reach a conviction under “universal jurisdiction,” which allows the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad. Sonko was taken Monday in a police van to Switzerland’s federal criminal court in southern Bellinzona. He applied for asylum …

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LISBON — The new leader of Portugal’s ruling Socialist Party (PS) Pedro Nuno Santos pledged Sunday to increase the minimum wage and boost economic competitiveness through more incentives to select sectors, if he wins an election in March.  Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa, in office since 2015, resigned on Nov. 7 over an investigation into alleged illegalities in his government’s handling of lithium, hydrogen and data center projects.  President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has called a snap election for March 10.  Most opinion polls put the PS neck and neck with the center-right Social Democratic Party, but many analysts fear a …

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Kyiv, Ukraine — Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa paid a surprise visit Sunday to Kyiv where she said Tokyo was “determined” to keep supporting Ukraine, as the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion nears.   Kamikawa, the first high-level foreign official to visit Kyiv this year, announced new deliveries of defense equipment and discussed Tokyo’s plans to host a February conference to promote Ukraine’s economic reconstruction.    “Japan is determined to support Ukraine so that peace can return to Ukraine,” Kamikawa told a press conference with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, held in a bomb shelter as an air raid siren rang …

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Rome — Two hikers on snowshoes were killed by an avalanche in the Italian Alps near Switzerland, a rescue service said Sunday.  The avalanche occurred around noon Sunday at the 2,200-meter (7,200-foot) level in the Formazza valley in the Piedmont region, said Federico Catania, a spokesperson for Italy’s alpine rescue service.  The force of the avalanche pushed one of the victims into a lake near the bottom of the slope, while the other body was found in the mass of snow, he said.  Despite strong winds, a helicopter was able to lower a rescue team aided by a dog unit.  The …

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LJUBLJANA — Five people are trapped in a cave in southwestern Slovenia, unable to leave because of high water levels caused by heavy rainfall, authorities said Sunday. The group — a Slovenian family group of three adults and two guides — have been stuck in the Krizna Jama cave since Saturday when water levels rose inside, blocking the way out. Slovenian rescue teams said divers have reached the group, moved them to a safe spot envisaged for such emergencies and set up a heated shelter where they will have to wait for water levels to drop. All five people are fine, …

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Rome — The European Union should form its own combined army that could play a role in peacekeeping and preventing conflict, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said. In an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa, Tajani said that closer European cooperation on defense was a priority for the Forza Italia party that he leads. “If we want to be peacekeepers in the world, we need a European military. And this is a fundamental precondition to be able to have an effective European foreign policy,” he said in an interview published on Sunday. “In a world with powerful players like the United …

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LONDON — U.K. police have opened a fraud investigation into Britain’s Post Office over a miscarriage of justice that saw hundreds of postmasters wrongfully accused of stealing money when a faulty computer system was to blame. The Metropolitan Police force said late Friday that it is investigating “potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions,” relating to money the Post Office received “as a result of prosecutions or civil actions” against accused postal workers. Police also are investigating potential offenses of perjury and perverting the course of justice over investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. Between 1999 and …

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Paris — France’s foreign minister told her Iranian counterpart Saturday that “Iran and its affiliates” must stop “destabilizing acts” that could spark a broader conflict in the Middle East amid the war in Gaza.  During a telephone call with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Catherine Colonna “delivered a very clear message: the risk of regional conflagration has never been so great; Iran and its affiliates must immediately cease their destabilizing acts,” according to a statement on the X social media platform. “Nobody would win from escalation.”    Their call came after the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon said it had targeted an …

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VATICAN CITY — Amid resistance to some Vatican policy by more conservative factions of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis on Saturday cautioned the faithful against fracturing into groups “based on our own ideas.” He issued the call to abandon “ecclesiastical ideologies” in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica during Epiphany Day Mass, the last major Christmas season holiday. Francis also warned against “basking in some elegant religious theory” instead of finding God in the faces of the poor. Last month, Francis gave permission for priests to bless couples outside of marriage, including same-sex relationships, if the blessing was pastoral and not …

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LONDON — Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked roads outside the British parliament in London on Saturday, demanding an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and clashing with police who prevented them from marching across Westminster Bridge.  London, like other Western cities, has seen regular and sometimes large demonstrations calling for Israel to halt the bombardment of Gaza triggered by a surprise October 7 attack by Hamas militants that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,200 people.   The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says 22,722 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment.  Videos posted on social media showed police blocking protesters’ access to the …

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